


I've Got You

by moonstruckhargrove



Series: The Billy Hargrove Chronicles [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Stranger Things 2 - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Billy is a soft boi, F/M, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstruckhargrove/pseuds/moonstruckhargrove
Summary: Every night, at 9:30 on the dot, he comes into the diner for a chocolate shake. Until one night he doesn’t.





	I've Got You

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm moving all of my work from Tumblr over here as a failsafe so I don't lose it all. I'll also be keeping backup files on Google Docs in case shit hits the fan.
> 
> Welcome to the Billy Hargrove Chronicles!

It started on a Wednesday night at Benny’s Burgers on the outskirts of the sleepy town of Hawkins, Indiana. He came in like a whirlwind as you were cleaning up the table from your previous patrons, stacking the plates, glasses, and silverware expertly. He brought in a chill from the autumn air with him, and he stood out against the tiled floor of the burger joint, his dark clothing and demeanor versus the colored flooring.

He took a heavy seat at the bar and ducked his head into his hands. You dropped off the dirty dishes in the kitchen to do later and made your way over to him.

“What can I get ya?” you asked in your usual perky “customer service” voice. He barely spared you a glance, giving you just a small peak at the shiner curling around his left eye. You forced yourself not to focus on it and smiled brightly in encouragement.

Sighing, he requested a coffee, black.

You finished up with your other tables and stood behind the bar again, watching the boy drink from the coffee mug.

“You know, the chocolate shakes here are to die for,” you told him, smiling empathetically. He looked like he was about to roll his eyes, but when you pulled your bottom lip between your teeth, looking ever the innocent waitress, he relented with a nod. “Comin’ right up.”

You sat the milkshake down in front of him with a red and white striped straw. The boy looked highly unamused by the chocolate jimmies sprinkled over the whipped cream, but you whirled away to distract yourself by wiping down the empty tables.

This routine went on for a month or so. Every night, at 9:30 on the dot, the boy would walk in and ask for a chocolate shake, and he was always sporting a new war wound. It didn’t take long for you to connect his injuries with his knuckles, clean from any marring except for a few criss-crossed scars.

On the fourth night, you’d finally learned his name.

You never talked about much. He’d asked you why he’d never seen you around school if you were 17, and you shyly told him you’d graduated a year early to take the year off before college to save up some pocket change. Once or twice he’d brought some homework along with him that he was struggling with, and you’d help him figure it out without doing the work for him.

On a Friday night, it was nearing closing time at 10:30. Billy hadn’t shown that night, and you were surprised to find yourself more than disappointed. He kept you from getting bored as you finished your shift, and so his absence was definitely missed.

You were wiping down the last table, a pile of dishes in your arms, when the bell rang above the door.

“I’m sorry, we’re closing up for the night!” you called without looking over your shoulder. You heard a body drop onto one of the bar stools and turned to address the person again.

Your breath caught as you took in Billy’s hunched form, his head buried in his hands as his fingers wound through his curly mullet. His shoulders shook, making you set the dishes on the table to be finished later. You sat beside him on a stool, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. He flinched and you winced, but then he relaxed under your touch.

“Billy, are you all right?” You didn’t know what went on for him to come into the diner looking like he went eight rounds with Mike Tyson, but tonight was the worst you’d ever seen him. When he lifted his head out of his hands, you couldn’t stop the gasp from leaving your throat.

His eyebrow was split and bleeding, as was his nose, which was beginning to bruise an unflattering shade of purple, and his lower lip. His left eye was swollen nearly completely shut, and when you tugged on his arm to bring him to the bathroom, he walked stiffly, as if each step was agony.

You sat him on the closed toilet seat while you pulled the first aid kit from the cabinet beneath the sink. Kneeling in front of him, your heart broke at the dullness in his eyes and the tear tracks down his cheeks. It was the most vulnerable you’d ever seen him.

He winced when you pressed a gauze pad doused in hydrogen peroxide to the cut on his eyebrow and then to his lip, one hand on his chin to steady him as you worked. His hands were curled into fists on his thighs that would clench when the peroxide stung the wounds.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered brokenly. “I’m so sorry.”

His sad eyes met yours as you applied a butterfly bandage to the slice in his eyebrow. When you moved to do the same to his lip, his hand came up and covered yours, gripping it tightly, as if it was the only thing keeping him grounded.

“It’s okay,” you murmured, brushing your thumb over the back of his hand. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

The vulnerability slid behind his eyes, replacing the lifelessness, and your chest ached. Even though you wouldn’t go so far as to call the two of you friends, there was a mutual respect and understanding there that put you on a completely different plane. And the way he was looking at you now, like he’d be lost without you, was pressing harder and harder on your emotions and your throat constricted, threatening to cut off your airways.

“It was my dad,” he croaked, looking away to avoid seeing the inevitable pity in your eyes. But when he glanced back, you’d surprisingly kept your face neutral, an expert poker face you’d crafted after dealing with rude and unruly customers at the diner. “He…I-I failed that Chem test.”

That made you frown. You’d help Billy study for that one long after the diner had closed for the night.

You remained silent as he continued, spilling all the dirty secrets about his life that he’d never shared with anyone. His father leaving his dying mother for a woman Billy hadn’t met until they’d gotten married, her teenage daughter who Billy had no desire to get to know, the way he treated her and her mother, his father’s rage and the constant disappointment whenever Billy didn’t succeed. He told you how, once he graduated, he would be out of Hawkins faster than he could blink. He told you all about how, outside of the diner and home, he was angry, aggressive, picking fights wherever he could just to feel like he had some semblance of control over his life.

He was trembling by the time he’d finished, and you sat silent, kneeling on the bathroom floor while Billy tried to compose himself. He’d never tell you, but he felt lighter, as if the giant lead weight he carried around with him since California had been suddenly lifted. He couldn’t say what it was about you that made him feel not so hopeless, that he wasn’t so far gone and couldn’t come back to the boy he was in California, before his father left his dying mother.

Maybe it was your obvious kindness, or your patience with him when you were helping him with his homework and he’d get so frustrated he’d lash out. Or perhaps it was the way you never pried, even though he’d caught your eyes bouncing between his clean knuckles and his latest bloody lip or black eye. You weren’t stupid, but you didn’t push him; you let him come to you, and he did.

So when graduation finally came, and you waited for him at the diner the night of, two celebratory milkshakes already made up, and he never showed, you were confused. You’d even go so far to say heartbroken. You knew of his plans to leave Hawkins, but you thought you were at least worth a goodbye.

Clearly you were wrong, and the absence of Billy Hargrove opened up a giant void in your life.


End file.
